The Truth About War Of The Roommates Part 1: The Battle Of Gabby
In the installment I wrote about Paige and my one-year anniversary (Spring Break 2024 Part 1: Paige and my 1-Year Anniversary), I said that I’ve been super stressed for a while, and things came to a head shortly after Melody and Rob’s wedding. This three-parter is a complete depiction of that situation. I have been lying! To you, to people in my life, and frankly, to myself. I'm getting ahead of myself though, so let's start at the beginning. Here is the story of War Of The Roommates, as you, the audience, knows it:
I signed the lease to my Gleason Road Apartment in early 2022. My roommate, Shane, was already on the lease, and I was just added on. After I became the event coordinator for his engagement to his now fiancé Jessica, he and I started having problems. I started staying with my parents full-time again, but toward the end of the summer, we had a sit-down and fixed things. For the sake of these installments, I'm going to call this Era 1. After Shane and I fixed things, Jessica and I started having issues, and that led Shane and me to start having issues again, but we smoothed everything over in early 2023. I will call this Era 2. One thing happened in each of these eras that came together and created the secret Era 3. Just as sort of a table of contents: this installment will be about the event that happened in Era 1, part 2 will be about the event that happened in Era 2, and part 3 will be the fallout of Era 3’s creation.
Right at the beginning of Shane and my roommatehood, Shane met my “sisters,” Aspen and Kid. Shortly after he met them, he made a comment that made me a little uncomfortable bringing them around the apartment. Just to be clear, I know that Shane did not mean anything by what he said. He has Down Syndrome, and as a disabilities advocate, I tried not to hold it against him, but we did have a conversation about it.
In June of 2022, my girlfriend at the time, Gabby, came down to my area to have dinner with my family. In the installment I wrote about that event (Meet The Ulibarris), I explained that she got to my apartment at 3:00, and then I drove her around town and showed her things before dinner, as she had never been to my area. Shane can't drive, so I got the apartment parking spot. As I was the driver for the day, Gabby left her car in the parking spot.
After dinner, Gabby and I got into my car and drove back to my apartment. It had started raining for the second time that day while we were eating. As we drove, we talked about how well the dinner went, and we kept talking about it for a bit as I pulled up in front of my apartment. Once she got out of my car, I waited for her to pull out of my spot. It was taking her a while to drive away, and right when I was starting to question it Gabby started angrily storming back toward my car with a yellow piece of paper in her hands. Now, this was two years ago, and the paper was drenched, so all I really remember is how gross the paper was, but Gabby was upset because it said something along the lines of, “Get the F out of this parking spot. It's not yours!”
I had told Shane that Gabby was coming over that night, but I did forget to tell him that she was parking in my spot. I just assumed that he would figure it out, process of elimination you know? I know that I should have communicated a little better, but at the time, it felt like he was just not respecting the women in my life, with or without the miscommunication. After Gabby left, I entered my apartment, and Shane and I got into a fight. I told him how upset she was, and he said, “I promise I'll apologize to her!” I was happy to let that be the solution. Unfortunately (at least for the sake of this situation), the next week, I went to Norris Lake with my family, and Gabby and I broke up while I was on that trip.
This issue died with my and Gabby's relationship, but it came back when Paige and I started dating. I know it's stupid and honestly a little immature to hold it against Shane, but I could never get comfortable having Paige at my apartment because of what happened between Shane and Gabby. And honestly, I think the only thing that would have made me feel better was if he apologized to Gabby, but I wasn't going to bring my ex back, just to fix this little thing. That would 1. be unrealistic and 2. not be fair to Paige or Gabby.
To be continued…
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